Last edited by David Bailey; 26th-November-2007 at 08:46 PM.
hehe how odd.. I've been baking bread today as well. I went for a simple wholemeal and sunflower seeded rustic bread. I don't have a bread maker unfortunately
Tastes lovely though .. nice cruncy well fired crust*
(Baking jargon for.. *Slightly overbaked But only slightly.. not burnt !)
You could try something a little more adventurous, google rewana bread for a precise recipe, basically, boil some clean potatoes, skin on but sliced, leave the water in the pot (covered), (use the spuds elsewhere), wait until the mix starts to bubble about three or four days, use this mix as the yeast and water part of your bread.
(Old Maori recipe, I have been told it works with sweet potatoes as well)
look here Has anybody got the receipe for the starter plant for rewana bread? - Yahoo! Answers
Last edited by kiwi_clay; 27th-November-2007 at 12:19 PM. Reason: adding link to recipe for plant
Adventurous? That's The Indiana Jones of Bread making. me I'm more at the Mr Bean of bread making level
I have found though that my bread.. while fine enough is ,well, a bit on the bland side. I used good quality flour but it doesn't really have a strong taste.
Mind you this is probably more to do with my particular congenital problem than anything else. perhaps it'll taste fine to someone with a fully functioning olfactory system.
adding in the sunflower seeds gave it a nice texture but didn't impart much in the way of flavour.
For all the bakers on here (bread, cakes, pies) who missed the Guardian on Saturday, check this out. Made me feel hungry just reading it!
And once you've read the list of ingredients in shop-bought cakes somehow making your own seems so much more appealing.
Am well known for making good bread. I usually use an equal mix of strong white bread flour, wholemeal and grannary flour. Secret ingredient for my bread is malt extract - disolve one or two tablespoons in the warm water you use to mix the dough up with. I also use a mixture of seeds kneaded into the dough after it's been knocked back and am re-kneading. Mix of poppy, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin seeds.
My mother always used to say that you should make bread when you're angry as you can punch the living daylights out of the dough when you're kneading it
Personally I love the feel of the dough between my fingers, pushing and pulling it, twisting and turning it. Very satisfying
When I used to make bread, I would make soda bread and add black treacle with sultanas, another mix was porridge oats in the flour, and add sultanas and raisons in a plain white mix. Stong bread flour is always the best, butter milk and bicarbonate of soda to make it rise. It didn't last two minutes when it came out of the oven it was wolfed down, with hot strong tea, best butter and rhubarb and ginger jam............delicious
if you love the life you live then you'll get a lot more done
I used to live in Great Moors, Stockport, and when sent on errands along Buxton Road for groceries (passing time whilst walking along by salivating at visions of the naked ladies in the life class at my evening Art School class) I would purchase for mere pennies a most wholesome and delicious small wholemeal loaf; warm and cuddlesome from the oven in the bakery along there. They were magiced from Allinson's flour but had a moistness and juiceiness imparted, I'm pretty sure, from Twirly's secret ingredient; malt extract.
Hovis, by contrast, was anodyne and tastless.
Mind you I can remember when even white bread, warm from the bakery oven, tempted boyish fingers to pluck out chunks from one end on the way home. Lovely today, stale tomorrow.
Once there; thick slices spread with butter (sadly, more often margarine) and golden syrup, or condensed milk, even sugar granules, fed the appetite of a growing preteenager.
These days, sliced plastic chemicalised and steamed white bread is just about palatable for days on end, but is a very definite no, no, for this fella. I'd rather eat oven chips.
Last edited by Whitebeard; 30th-November-2007 at 03:29 AM. Reason: Repetition
Effectively rewana bread is a sour-dough bread, with a somewhat earthier taste, you will need maltose to feed the yeast produced in this way, but the taste is definitely better IMHO, however I do know people who hated it .
In relation to twirly's post's malt extract helps because almost all yeasts used in baking use maltose to grow and produce gas, when we add sucrose that is what helps to brown the crust.
If you are not gluten intolerant, try adding gluten to your flour (teaspoon per cup by memory, check this out), as this will improve the structure of your bread ,
Another thing to remember is salt kills yeast so never add the two together, but you do need salt as this is needed for the gluten to produce a good structure.
There are a number of company's here that make "bread improver", basically a mix of gluten and vitamin C, which speeds the yeast, and helps with structure..often this will already be mixed into commercial breadmaker mixes..
Its been a few years Im now having to dig my breadmaking pan's out again
Hey hey some else who had condonie sarnies and sugar butties. Is it a Northern thing or have my friends in the South heard of it as well? I think we were just poor. Just can't believe I ate them but then I really used to like 'pobs' as well, hot milk with lumps of white bread in it. Ahh now where's that Monty Python sketch.....
if you love the life you live then you'll get a lot more done
By eckerslike, I'd forgotten about that. Used to like loads of sugar in mine, but my father added a hefty sprinkling of salt; just as he also did with porridge (think that's a Scots' thing he picked up).
And when you had boils you had a boiling hot pobs poultice slapped on your neck !!!
if you love the life you live then you'll get a lot more done
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